Disassembling and reassembling the heritage. A conversation with Martino Pedrozzi 

DOI:10.30682/aa1902e

Edited by Roberto Dini and Stefano Girodo

Martino Pedrozzi

Born in Zurich in 1971, he lived in Peru between 1973 and 1975. After completing his studies at the Federal Polytechnic of Lausanne he began working as an independent architect with a studio in Mendrisio. Since 2003 he has founded and directed the Workshops on International Social Housing at the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture, where he has become visiting professor since 2016.

Keywords: Rural heritage, vernacular architecture, ruins, memory, land art

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Martino Pedrozzi operates in Canton Ticino. His architectural production ranges from renovations to ex novo interventions; among the most remarkable projects, the interventions on the abandoned heritage of high mountain pastures in Val Malvaglia are worth mentioning. With a combination of art and architecture, Pedrozzi “reassembles” the stones of the destroyed ruins within their own perimeter walls, with implications of symbolic, conservative and landscape value. This project implies various meanings: from the restoration of a neat public spatiality, to a gesture of pietas and dignity towards a civilization, the rural Alpine one, ended only a few decades ago. The interventions are going to involve also building reconditioning, wherever the pre-existing ones will allow it, through minimal substitutions and integrations. The redevelopment also extends to the landscape, through practical and symbolic cleaning operations of former alpine pastures covered with vegetation since their abandonment. Freed from functionality and economic interests, they become construction sites shared by volunteers, friends and students, involving a strong educational component.